2016 presidential hopeful pleads not guilty in abuse-of-power case

The Texas governor pleaded not guilty Wednesday in the abuse-of-power case against him, waiving a formal arraignment that had been scheduled for Friday and signaling again his readiness to fight a prosecution that he has decried as a “farce.” This after Perry, who just days ago was barnstorming Iowa as he weighs a 2016 presidential bid, strode up to the Austin courthouse here on Tuesday to be booked and fingerprinted—and looking every bit the congenial, confident, quintessentially-Texan politician he has played with success for 30 years.

“Like a true West Texan, in the face of adversity Rick Perry is doubling down and meeting his critics head on,” Rice University political scientist Mark Jones said. “Unlike most politicians facing indictments, Perry is reaching out to the media as opposed to running away from it.”

That approach led Perry’s lawyers to hold a briefing on Monday at an Austin hotel, unveiling a stellar team of star lawyers, and advising the media well in advance Tuesday that the governor would be turning himself in for the obligatory mugshot. After the booking, like the good Texan that he is, Perry made a point to thank the Travis County sheriff’s deputies who booked him—evoking a contrast with the torrent of abuse an intoxicated Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg unleashed on deputies and jail guards when she was booked on a DUI charge in April, 2013.

Perry’s response to a video of Lehmberg’s tirade, which prompted calls for her resignation from both Democrats and Republicans, is at the heart of the indictment against him last week. Prosecutors say he abused his power by threatening to veto funds for the Public Intergrity Unit she heads if she didn’t resign, an assertion that Perry and even some liberals have warned constitutes prosecutorial overreach into policing even the most basic posturing in modern politics. But Lehmberg is also at the center of Perry’s public relations strategy so far.

“If I had to do so, I would veto funding for the public integrity unit again,” Perry told a cheering crowd of supporters Tuesday. “I’m going to fight this injustice with every fiber of my being. And we will prevail.”

For Perry, this is a black hat-white hat YouTube range war, with a vodka-guzzling, out-of-control, drunken Democratic prosecutor on one side and a self-styled champion of the people and the rule of law on the other. Perry’s political action committee, RickPAC, unveiled a new ad Tuesday featuring, of course, the Lehmberg video.

“Governor Perry’s public relations strategy is to present this indictment as one blow, low and foul, in an ongoing fight between a disgraced, partisan, Democratic, district attorney and a Republican governor fighting for common decency, the rule of law, and the sanctity of the Texas Constitution,” said Cal Jillson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University and longtime observer of Texas politics. “This framing is working pretty well, especially among Republican leaders and activists, but it is at best a short term strategy that will be of no use at all if the case goes to trial.”

Perry’s only hope of remaining a viable presidential candidate for 2016 is to get the charges dismissed before trial, Jillson said. “But if he goes to trial, there will be weeks of testimony from Austin insiders describing in most unappetizing terms precisely how the political sausage was made,” Jillson said. “If that happens, it will make Chris Christie’s ‘Bridgegate’ troubles look like a walk in the park.”

Some Democrats have pressed the argument that Perry’s attempt to dethrone Lehmberg was aimed at derailing an investigation into connections between Perry campaign contributors and the Cancer Prevention and Research Insitute of Texas (CPRIT). But other Democrats see the indictment as baseless, including David Botsford, a prominent Travis County Democrat and a member of Perry’s legal team. He was the first to greet Perry at the podium with a handshake and an embrace Tuesday.

Perry’s legal team is a mix of colorful, political, heavyweight and well-connected lawyers. Botsford is regarded as a top criminal lawyer in Texas, but also someone who knows the inner workings and politics of the Travis County courthouse. Lead lawyer Tony Buzbee, who said the Perry prosecution is an example of “banana republic politics,” is a charismatic Houston plaintiff’s attorney. Also on the team are two star Washington attorneys—Ben Ginsberg, who represented President George W. Bush in the 2000 Florida recount, and Bobby Burchfield who has led the Republican National Committee’s successful legal fight against a key campaign finance law. The goal is likely to get the indictment thrown out as quickly as possible, and to get the case moved out of Travis County, where the judges and the majority of jurors are Democrats

While Perry’s stellar legal team plots the maneuvers ahead, Perry needs to focus on a different jury, political analysts say. “The principal problem for Perry is not so much how the indictment is being viewed by Republican caucus and primary voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and elsewhere, but rather the doubts it is creating about Perry’s political future among major donors as well as political elites whose endorsements Perry needs to be viable, especially in the early caucus and primary states,” Jones said.

“Both the donors and elites are thinking far more about the long game of winning not only the GOP primary, but especially the general election, and are quite likely to view the indictment, regardless of merit, as a significant political liability,” Jones said. “If Perry cannot get the charged dismissed, the indictment will be a dark cloud following any Perry 2016 presidential campaign.”

See Governor Rick Perry’s New Mugshot

Texas Governor Rick Perry indictment over charges of alleged abuse of power left him required to something not common of a sitting governor: take a mugshot.

Perry turned himself in to have his mugshot taken on Tuesday at the Travis County Courthouse in Austin, Texas.

Perry ardently objects to charges laid out against him by the Travis County District Attorney. He stated on Tuesday that he remained confident because of his belief that “the rule of law would prevail.”

Rick Perry Defiant in Face of Criminal Charges

"We don't settle political differences with indictments"

+ READ ARTICLE

Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Saturday dismissed the criminal charges leveled against him as partisan political gamesmanship, and vowed to stand by his decision in 2013 to veto funding for a public integrity unit.

“We don’t settle political differences with indictments,” said Perry, referring to the grand jury’s Friday indictment against him. “‘It is outrageous that some would use partisan political theatrics to tear away the fabric of our constitution.”

The indictment is a response to Perry’s 2013 veto of $7.5 million in funding to state’s public integrity unit, based in the Travis County district attorney’s office. District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg, who ran the unit, was arrested on charges of driving while intoxicated in 2012. Perry vetoed her office’s funding after she refused to step aside.

At the time that Perry vetoed the funding, the unit was investigating one of Perry’s signature achievements, the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, for alleged mismanagement.

The grand jury indicted include abuse of official capacity, which carries a penalty of five to 99 years in prison, and coercion of a public servant, which carries a penalty of two to 10 years.

Perry said Saturday that as governor, he is constitutionally within his rights to veto funding for any office. “I exercise the authority to veto funding for an office whose leadership has lost the public’s confidence by acting inappropriately and unethically,” said Perry. “I intend to fight against those that that would erode our state constitution and laws purely for political purposes.”

Perry added that he will continue to focus on his governorship and focus particularly closely on border security.

Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, both likely contenders against Perry for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, have voiced their support for the governor.

Special Prosecutor Michael McCrum, a noted San Antonio criminal defense attorney who led the indictment against Perry, told reporters he will be working with the governor’s attorney to set up a time for Perry to be arraigned and booked. “I feel confident with the charges that have been filed,” he said.

Fast-Food Franchise Holders in California Score a Major Legal Win

Supporters of the SB 610 bill say employees as well as franchisees will benefit

Major fast-food companies — ranging from McDonald’s to 7-Eleven — will find it harder to terminate agreements with their franchise holders after the California state legislature passed the SB 610 bill granting franchisees additional rights.

The proposed law pits industry bodies like the International Franchise Association (IFA) and the California Chamber of Commerce against small businesses as well as labor unions like the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

The SEIU argues that the bill’s passage will pave the way for increased wages and benefits for employees, as franchisees no longer have to worry about the threat of contract termination for introducing such benefits.

“Corporate headquarters control nearly every aspect of our business — we can be punished for speaking out or joining with other franchise owners to improve business conditions, and the franchises can even be shut down for arbitrary reasons — as mine was,” said McDonald’s franchisee Kathryn Carter to SEIU California.

Opponents, however, say the bill will negatively affect quality control and consistency — and reiterated their concerns following the assembly’s 41 to 27 yes vote.

In a statement obtained by MSNBC, IFA president and CEO Steve Caldeira criticized language used in the bill: “SB 610, particularly the termination language, is more vague and obscure in its definition than any other state franchise law.”

Missouri Governor Stumbles in the Ferguson Spotlight

Scott Olson—Getty ImagesMissouri Governor Jay Nixon listens to residents and community leaders as they discuss unrest in the town of Ferguson following the shooting death of Michael Brown during a forum held at Christ the King UCC Church on August 14, 2014 in Florissant, Mo.

The Democrat stumbled and mumbled his way through a 38-minute news conference Thursday, when he announced that the Missouri Highway Patrol would replace the aggressive St. Louis County police department as the lead agency for securing Ferguson after nights of confrontations between protesters and police.

Popular Among Subscribers

“I try to put gasoline into the engine of fire engines when I see them and not on the fires that are existing,” he said haltingly, when asked about his lack of visibility for most of this week.

Nixon had been silent on Saturday’s shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown for 72 hours, until delivering brief comments at a local community meeting Tuesday evening. But his pleas for prayer and patience went unheeded, as violence and the heavy-handed police response escalated. Rubber bullets and tear gas were aimed at mostly peaceful protesters, as law enforcement officers armed in tactical gear aimed scoped rifles from the tops of military surplus vehicles.

By Wednesday, the situation drew additional national attention after the arrest of two journalists and images that resembled a domestic war zone on television screens across the country. Meanwhile, Nixon was on the other side of the state preparing to attend the 62nd Annual Governor’s Ham Breakfast at the State Fair. Political activists, journalists, and community leaders blasted Nixon’s silence, and by 11:45 p.m. Wednesday, the governor was playing defense.

“The immediate security responsibilities will now be directed by the Missouri highway patrol,” he announced at a news conference after canceling the state fair appearance to travel to Ferguson to meet with residents and law enforcement.

This was not Nixon’s first time under fire from the state’s black community. The local NAACP criticized him in the mid-1990s as state Attorney General for efforts to undo Missouri’s desegregation school busing program. A longtime political observer told TIME that Nixon appeared gun-shy and lacked warmth when dealing with the state’s black community and St. Louis county in general.

Asked Thursday about his relationship with the state’s black community before and during this crisis, Nixon reached for an answer before saying he “[appreciates] the relationship” he has with them but expects criticism in his job. Asked whether a special prosecutor should be appointed he chuckled, adding “We’ve got two already.” State and federal prosecutors are investigating the circumstances of Brown’s death, as the credibility of local officials has been put in doubt.

That was better than an earlier appearance Thursday at a meeting with residents at a church, where Nixon tried his hand at comedy to defuse the tense situation, cracking a joke about being late because he had just gotten off the phone with President Barack Obama, and quipping that he didn’t mind that he looked heavy on television.

Obama, meanwhile, defended Nixon. “He is a good man and a fine governor, and I’m confident that working together, he’s going to be able to communicate his desire to make sure that justice is done and his desire to make sure that public safety is maintained in an appropriate way,” the President said.

Nixon had long been seen to have national ambitions, declining to rule out a presidential run in 2016 as recently as February. Democratic operatives had seen him as a short-list contender for the role of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s running mate. But his handling of the Ferguson crisis could hinder his national prospects.

Nixon spoke in faux mil-speak as he tried to project command of the situation, saying the new police efforts would be geared at toward “maintaining the peace but allowing more movement, trying to bring in different tone of the amplitude of the protective force.”

Meanwhile, St. Louis County Executive Charles Dooley and Highway Patrol Capt. Ron Johnson delivered impassioned pleas for calm and promised a new approach that respects the rights of the people of Ferguson. “We can do better than this,” Dooley said. “Calm down, stand down, and let’s be reasonable.”

Johnson, a native of the area, promised a more peaceful demeanor from the officers now under his command. “We are going to have a different approach and have the approach that we’re in this together,” he said.

Stringent rules delayed sales of edibles for a month after the first legal marijuana sales took place in Washington state

When the first sales of legal recreational marijuana took place in Washington state this July, there were no edible products in sight. Due to a stringent oversight process put in place by the Washington State Liquor Control Board, no kitchens had been approved for churning out legal pot brownies or THC-infused oils or other green goodies.

That changed at 10:30 p.m. on Wednesday night when Al Olson, the marijuana editor of CNBC.com, purchased the first approved edibles, spending about $200 on products like Green Chief “Crazy Carnival Nuts,” “420 Party Mix,” and “Twisted Trail Mix,” as well as one vaporizer pen and “vape” pen battery. The historic sale took place in Bellingham, Wash., at a store called Top Shelf Cannabis, which was also the first to market with marijuana leaf sales.

The Board, put in charge of implementing the legal marijuana market, had the benefit of watching Colorado start up its marijuana market first. The state experienced issues with children accidentally ingesting marijuana edibles and then proposed more stringent rules about label packaging at the end of July. If approved, rules like putting certain edibles in child-resistant packaging will go into effect Nov. 1.

In June, the Washington Board adopted emergency rules requiring its approval for every edible product, including its packaging and labeling, before being put on store shelves. Products containing more than one serving had to be marked to show serving sizes, a rule Colorado is also considering to help combat accidental overconsumption by inexperienced THC consumers.

“Knowing the rest of the country is scrutinizing every move Washington makes in the space, there was no way this process could have been done quicker,” said industry expert Ata Gonzalez, who makes products like cannabis-infused chocolate at GFarmaLabs in California.”It’s great way the industry, and state laws allowing marijuana use, can display a certain level of responsibility in such a volatile environment.”

Bloomberg—Bloomberg via Getty ImagesCalifornia Republican gubernatorial candidate Neel Kashkari pauses during a Bloomberg West Television interview in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Friday, Feb. 28, 2014. Kashkari, former head of the U.S. Treasury's bank bailout program, discussed his decision to run for governor in California.

TIME sat down with the candidate to talk about his stint as a homeless man and how the GOP is going to stop their decline in California

Neel Kashkari is not yet a name most Republicans would recognize, and he holds policy positions many Republicans abhor. But the former banker who spearheaded the 2009 bank bailout may also be the Republican Party’s best hope for salvaging its brand in the nation’s most populous state.

In June, Kashkari came in second in the California governor primary with 19% of the vote. That makes him the single man standing between Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown, who won 54%, and what is assumed to be Brown’s impending, unprecedented fourth term. Kashkari, however, says he refuses to let Brown coast to victory again. “He thinks he’s entitled to the governorship because his daddy was governor,” Kashkari told TIME, when asked about Brown. “It’s like a coronation. So, okay, this is a democracy. I’m gonna make him answer.”

Popular Among Subscribers

A native Ohio son of two immigrant parents, Kashkari is not a typical Republican, which may prove to be his most threatening feature in the increasingly blue Golden State. He’s a fiscal conservative, and a former Goldman Sachs financier, who supports abortion rights and same-sex marriage. He voted for Barack Obama in 2008, but has also been endorsed by Mitt Romney, whom he strongly supported in 2012. The 41-year-old has never held an elected office, unless you count being elected to lead the finance club at Wharton Business School (which he, half-jokingly, says was a very stiff competition). With coffers dwarfed by Brown’s $22 million war chest, and $2 million of his own money already sunk into the race, Kashkari has been finding creative ways to win the spotlight.

In July, he spent a full week living homeless on the streets of Fresno, playing out an experiment wherein he tried his best to find work and failed, sleeping in parking garages and eating at homeless shelters. It was an attempt to point out that things could be better in California, and he made a video to prove it.

This week TIME sat down with the candidate. Here is a lightly edited transcript of that conversation.

The California GOP seems to be on the decline. There are fewer than ever registered Republican voters. A Republican hasn’t won a statewide office in eight years. The legislature is controlled by Democrats. Where did the party go wrong?

I can’t point to any one thing and say this is where they went wrong, or where we went wrong. I think it’s been a gradual decline. But that’s part of my mission. California is obviously a unique state, right? And probably the most diverse in the whole country. And I don’t think our party has done a good job reflecting that diversity, which is why I feel I have such a great opportunity to show the state, and show the country, that there’s a Republican party, a Republican candidate, that can reflect that diversity and reach out into the diverse communities and unite everyone.

So there’s embracing more diverse groups. Is that just one prong in a larger reinvention that needs to happen for the California GOP?

I don’t think it’s reinvention. One of the things that the Republican party has done a lousy job of nationally is explaining how our economic ideas help regular families. That’s part of why I did what I did a couple weeks ago in Fresno … We’re down to 28% registered Republicans. That data is right there. We’re not going to win another election if we just win the 28% of registered Republicans. So we have to grow our party. And what I’ve been doing for the last year and a half is reaching out into Latino communities, African-American communities, Asian communities and learning, What do you want? And you know what they want? A good education for their kids and good jobs.

Do Republicans at large need to be embracing the LGBT community more?

Absolutely. A few weeks ago, I marched in a gay pride parade, and the LGBT press said it was the first time a Republican gubernatorial candidate had done that. And my reaction was, Well, why wouldn’t I? They’re an important part of California, and I want to help them achieve their dreams. And you know what their dreams are? They want good jobs and they want good education for their kids, the same as everybody else. I’m working extra hard to reach out into every community, especially ones that have historically come to believe that Republicans don’t care about them.

Do you support same-sex marriage or believe, from a libertarian perspective, that it simply should not be banned by the government?

To me it’s the same thing. I support same-sex marriage. And I think the government shouldn’t be getting into any of our business. People should be free to live the lives that they want to lead, as long as they’re not hurting anybody else. I was asked about reparative therapy recently, which I think is absurd. The idea that you’re going to convert a gay person to a straight person. You’re as likely to convert me to being gay … People should be allowed to marry whomever they want.

There’s been a lot of controversy about the law banning reparative therapy in California. There’s also been controversy over a new law that allows K-12 transgender students to access sports teams and bathrooms that align with their gender identity. What’s your take on that?

My issue with that law is not the substance. My issue is the way it was done. There was never a discussion statewide. Parents were, frankly, not consulted. And all of a sudden this is passed, seemingly in the middle of the night. This is a real issue, and kids need to be protected from bullying … [But] we’re 46th out of 50 for education. This is the biggest issue that the governor and the legislature is focused on in education? We’ve got this Vergara case that just happened in June, finding that the civil rights of minority kids are being violated. To me, it’s a question of priorities. Let’s go fix our schools so that every kid—gay, straight, transgender—every kid gets a good education.

In the California GOP platform, unnecessary spending on social programs is derided. Are you prepared, when you’re addressing these issues of homelessness, poverty, lack of jobs, to spend money on social programs?

We’re spending a lot on social programs today. Those, in my view, are meant to be a bridge, a bridge to a job. But when you just push social programs, social programs, social programs, and there’s no destination at the end of the bridge—it’s a bridge to nowhere—you accomplish nothing. And that’s my big beef with both the policies that the Democrats and Jerry Brown have pursued and, frankly, President Obama has pursued nationally. Unemployment benefit extensions, more food stamps, more welfare. But to what? To what end?

Where does inequality rank in terms of California’s problems?

It’s an output. Income inequality and poverty are products of a failure in our policies, education policies and economic growth policies. If we get a lousy education, stuck in a failing school, we get left behind when the economy grows. And income inequality just expands. More people get left behind in failing schools. And that’s why this Vergara case is landmark. Because finally a judge has said education is a civil right, and we need to look at it through the lens of civil rights.

In a way these are issues that have been around since Proposition 187, and before. What are your thoughts about what happened then and how it relates to now?

To me, that’s old news. I always go into every community with the same message. I want your kids to get a good education. I want you to get a good job. And people say to me, Well, what about immigration? I say, Look, I’m the son of immigrants. I believe immigrants add tremendous value to our country. We’re a nation of immigrants, and we need to embrace immigration. But we also need to update our laws to provide the workers our economy needs. In Silicon Valley, they need engineers. Farmers need farm workers. Let’s prioritize those workers that we need. And then we need to enforce the law. There’s no point to having any laws that are utterly unenforced, whether it’s gun laws or immigration laws.

To drill down on one specific point, what kind of public services should undocumented immigrants have access to?

I don’t have a laundry list in my head of ‘These are what’s appropriate, and these are not.’ I don’t think that people are coming to this country or coming to this state in pursuit of such services. I think they’re coming here in pursuit of jobs. And the more we can grow the economy, the better off everyone is going to be.

It’s easy to draw a comparison with some former GOP candidates, like Meg Whitman, who came into the race with a fortune of their own. Is there a disconnect between talking about poverty so much and coming from a background that was relatively privileged?

Compare my background to Jerry Brown’s. My parents were immigrants. I grew up middle class, mowing lawns and bagging groceries. Jerry Brown grew up in the governor’s mansion. He’s worth way more money that I am. I said, Okay Governor, you want to talk about who’s rich? Let’s release your taxes. You want to do one year? I’ll do one. You want to do five, I’ll do five. You want to do 10, I’ll do 10. Do you know what he’s said since then? Nothing. So if I’m not allowed to talk about poverty, and he’s not talking about poverty by choice, who’s going to talk about it?

I think it’s the height of arrogance. He thinks he’s entitled to the governorship because his daddy was governor. It’s like a coronation. So, okay, this is a democracy. I’m gonna make him answer.

Have you interacted with Brown or met him?

No.

In other interviews, you’ve acknowledged that in some ways the state is better off since he took office. Unemployment is down, though still not ideal. Exports are up. The economy is growing. How bad are things in California now compared to when he took office?

Look at how bad things are now in an absolute sense. I went to Fresno for seven days looking for a job. I did not see a single ‘Help Wanted’ sign. But virtually all the fast food restaurants now accept food stamps. It’s in the windows. If you want to just hang out in the Bay Area, you’re right, things are great. But if we travel around the rest of the state and see where most of California lives, a lot of people are struggling.

Your stint of homelessness has gotten you a lot of national media attention. What was that like on the ground?

It was literally seven days, six nights, of walking miles and miles and miles each day, going into diners, hardware stores, auto dealerships, saying, ‘Hey, I just got into town. I’m looking for work. I’ll wash cars, wash dishes, pack boxes, anything.’ And the closest I got to a job was with one woman, who runs a Mexican restaurant, who said she was looking for a cook. And I said, ‘Great, I’ll be your cook.’ And she said I needed at least a year’s worth of cooking experience for Mexican food. I didn’t know what I’d find. I didn’t know if after two days or a day, maybe I’d get a job and then I’d spend four or five days living as a working poor. Or I didn’t know if after one or two days this might be so hard, I run out of money, I run out of food, that I have to pull the plug. But after three or four days, when I was running out of money, it was other homeless people who said, ‘Oh, you can go to this homeless shelter.’ So that’s what I ended up turning to for food.

What has Jerry Brown failed to do to address homelessness and poverty that you would do?

Here’s a Democratic governor with a Democratic super-majority in the state senate and the state assembly. And he’s making incremental changes. He’s tinkering around the edges. He should be Nixon going to China. He should be the guy saying, ‘You know what, as governor, I’m going to go fight for the civil rights of poor kids. And I don’t care if my union bosses are mad at me for it.’ That’s what a bold leader would do. Is he doing it? No. He doesn’t want to upset the apple cart. The thing that angers me the most is if anybody in California has the power to make big changes, it’s Jerry Brown. He’s not lifting a finger … In the face of record poverty, schools that are near the worst, and unemployment that’s near the worst, he does what’s politically expedient for him. That’s a hell of a record.

Now that you’re a few months out of the primary and 20 points or so behind Brown, and he has a huge war chest, what do you think your chances are of winning?

I was at 2% in March. And all the press said I was done. It was over. And we won the primary with 19% on June 4. And we’re now at 33%. So we’ve come a hell of a long way in just a few months. So Jerry doesn’t want to debate. We’re having the debate now without him. Jerry’s gonna hide under his desk. Let him keep hiding.

Have you heard back about debates?

We’ve received four or five different debate requests from media outlets around the state, and we’ve accepted all of them. And he’s hiding. Look, if my legacy were 24% poverty [a number that comes from an alternative analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data], I wouldn’t want to debate either. He thinks he can just cruise, not have to talk about poverty, not have to talk about education, not have to talk about jobs, and get away with it. Because it’s the coronation of Jerry.

In a lot of ways the bailout can be considered a success. A lot of people, of course, hated it, seeing it as the regular guys bailing out the rich guys. Looking back now, is there anything that you would have done differently with the bailout or that the government should have done differently?

We hated that we had to do it. We wanted to let all the banks fail. Because they deserved to fail. So for a year, they had been calling us, saying they’re in trouble. And we said, Flush the toilet. You made a lousy investment. You own it. Nobody owes you anything. But when we faced the Great Depression scenario, that’s when ultimately we said we didn’t have a choice. We’re gonna step in. There are lots of little things I wish we could do differently with the benefit of hindsight. But in the big picture, the collective actions that we took were the right things to do.

So you’ve obviously been getting creative with your tactics of late, crashing a Jerry Brown event and living on the streets of Fresno. What else do you have up your sleeve?

I can’t tell you. [Laughs.] The issues I’ve been talking about since the first day of this campaign are poverty, lack of jobs, failing schools, income inequality, canceling the high speed train because it’s a big waste of money, and investing in water instead. Those are the issues we’re going to keep talking about because those are the most important issues facing the state. We’re going to come up with every creative way we can. … And I’m going to make Jerry Brown answer for his silence.

Some Missouri lawmakers hopes other states follow its lead on protecting privacy.

Missouri became the first state in the nation Tuesday to offer explicit constitutional protections of electronic communications and data from warrantless search and seizure by law enforcement.

The amendment to the state’s constitution places communications such as emails, text messages, and cloud storage under the same Fourth Amendment protection from unreasonable searches and seizures as “persons, homes, papers and effect” and will require police to have a warrant to gain access to phones, laptops, and electronic communications. It passed with 75% support in a statewide ballot effort.

“Yesterday’s overwhelming support for Amendment 9 reflects the emotion that Missourians feel about the invasion of their privacy,” said Republican state Sen. Rob Schaaf, who co-sponsored the measure with Republican Sen. Bob Dixon . “People are upset and they spoke with a very loud voice. They don’t want the government snooping.”

Schaaf says that the amendment’s specific legal impact will “take time to sort out” in Missouri, but he believes that the court will interpret it along the same lines as it interprets the right to privacy in person, paper, home, and effects. However, he believes that the national attention that the amendment receives will be its biggest impact, as that may inspire other states to follow suit.

“I think other states will look at this vote and they will follow Missouri’s lead,” Schaaf says.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that law enforcement must obtain a warrant to search cell phones seized during arrest, but the ruling did not address broader concerns about data privacy on other devices. The Missouri amendment will include laptops and communications alongside the Supreme Court’s cell phone ruling.

Federal legislation has been proposed to address the need for updated electronic communication privacy protections stored by third parties. The Email Privacy Act would update to the Electronic Communications Act of 1986, which Chris Calabrese, American Civil Liberties Union’s legislative counsel for privacy, pointed out has not been updated “substantially” since the new era of personal electronics took hold. The legislation has been passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee, but is currently in the House. “I think states will continue to act independently if there’s no federal legislation,” Calabrese says. “People care about privacy.”

This Map Shows the Wealthiest Person In Each State

Bill Gates is worth a whole lot more than the richest person in Alaska

Ever wonder what it would be like to be the richest person in the state? A new map compiled by real estate firm Movoto shows that it means radically different things depending on where you live.

The richest person in Alaska, investor Robert Gillam, is worth nearly $700 million. While that’s an impressive sum compared to the average American, it’s a less than 1 percent of the net worth of the wealthiest person in the state of Washington—Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Alaska joins Delaware, Maine, and North Dakota as the only billionaire-less states.

There are a couple of families that occupy spots in multiple states. Members of the Walton family, whose late patriarch Sam Walton founded Walmart, take the top spots in Arkansas, Texas and Wyoming. The billionaire industrialists, political donors, and philanthropists David and Charles Koch are worth around an estimated $40 billion each, making them the richest people in New York and Kansas, respectively. Their company, Koch Industries, is the second largest privately-owned corporation in the United States.

The map also highlights a big gender gap. A woman in the wealthiest person in nine states, with Wyoming’s Chrissy Walton topping the list at more than $35 billion.

Oracle founder Larry Ellison (California) and eBay Pierre Omidyar (Hawaii) are among the relative few tech billionaires. The map includes those who earned their billions through bricks and mortar, such as John Menard of Wisconsin, worth $7.5 billion, who founded the Menard’s home improvement chain, and Kentucky’s Bradley Hughes, better known as B. Wayne, who turned a self-storage business into a $2.2 billion fortune.

This post is in partnership with Fortune, which offers the latest business and finance news. Read the article below originally published at Fortune.com.

The entire world must contend with corruption. It costs honest citizens thousands of dollars per year and saps trust in public and private institutions.

We’ve all experienced corruption on at least a small scale at some point in our lives, but actually measuring it is difficult. Recently, Fortune covered a study by two public policy researchers—Cheol Liu of the City University of Hong Kong and John L. Mikesell of Indiana University—who looked the rate at which public employees in each of the 50 U.S. states had been convicted on federal corruption charges from 1976 to 2008 to determine which state was the most corrupt in the union.

Their conclusion? Mississippi, The Hospitality State, has not been all that hospitable to its citizens over the past 30-plus years, according to the study. The state had the highest ratio of public workers who were censured for misuse of public funds and other charges.

The researchers looked at the hard numbers—federal convictions—to control for differences in spending on law enforcement and the rigor of state corruption laws.

While these numbers don’t lie, Mississippi officials were none too pleased to top this list. As the state’s top corruption fighter, Mississippi State Auditor Stacey Pickering argued in an interview with Fortune that the study relied on old data and didn’t take into account the state’s anti-corruption efforts.

“This is dated material that goes back to 1976 until 2008, the year I was sworn into office,” said Pickering.